If there is open debate, then that is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. But if Sarko just coasts on his security rep, avoiding debate, people will be impressed by the "speedy" police reaction, and the lack of surveillance will stay out of sight.

Of course, if the left were in government, we'd be hearing about lax, permissive, anything-goes unrealistic dreamers.

This Wednesday, March 21, Nicolas Sarkozy is head of state, guarantor of the unity and republican authority. By Thursday, the campaign will resume its rights. And the UMP candidate in the presidential election of the president will reap success. Without boast, because officially, silence is golden. The best way to "enjoy" the outcome of the Toulouse killings, is to remain silent. Orders have been given to the troops of the majority party. "No comment. This is neither the time nor the moment" , said Hortefeux, the friend of Mr Sarkozy.

But the next day, the campaign will resume its rights. Mr Sarkozy intends to convene his campaign strategy committee at his headquarters. His troops are planning to keep the scheduled meeting in Strasbourg on Thursday. By Tuesday evening, a new campaign schedule was proposed to the candidate.

1:22 p.m.. Louis Aliot, vice president of FN, considers that Claude Guéant's statement that the suspect for the killings of Toulouse and Montauban was monitored by the DCRI "casts doubt" on the effectiveness of the fight against Islamist networks.

Louis Aliot (a "local", for some years a teacher at Toulouse University) is Marine Le Pen's partner irl. They make a lovely couple.

That could be, though I am not sure how that works in the grand scheme...she'll probably get some votes back from Sarko that were bleeding his way, maybe some from Mélenchon that were bleeding his way too. And as you point out, the 20% she might end up getting now will break more favorably for Sarko in the second round.

Problem is, assuming Sarko gets 30% in the first round, he is going to need to get close to 100% of Le Pens votes in the second. He's tracking more like 40% right now. And that simply is not going to happen.

And Bayrou voters are even less inclined to go to Sarko in the second round than Le Pen voters.

I still think Hollande has this locked, and am more watchful of what happens to Mélenchon, who was rising in the polls (and who I thought might get 15-20%)...

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet.
Winston Churchill

The question that I've been asking myself is whether Sarkozy isn't playing with fire on the immigrant bashing.

After all if you really agree with what he's (now) saying why vote for Sarkozy when you can have the real thing (Le Pen)?

If there is a real 9/11 style backlash in the country, who's to say that Le Pen won't get a second look?

In a 5 way race, the impact of random events like this becomes much harder to model. Because it isn't simply that a particular opponent losing a voter means that you are likely to gain them. In a 5 way race a shift in voters summing to five percent may mean:

* a major candidate is bleeding support to another major candidate
*a major candidate is gaining support from another major candidate

a major candidate's voters are diffusing out to the minor candidates

the minor candidates are losing voters to one of the major candidate.

And that's the simple stories. I hesitate to even guess who will make it to the second round, because the numbers are close enough that something like this shooting can unsettle things. In a race with five candidates polling over over 10% and the top two under 30%, small movements can dramatically change the playing field. And this is after we acknowledge the shortcomings of polling:

* +/- 3% means that that 10-15% gap between the first and second tier may be as little as 4-9% in reality *that a 95% confidence interval implies that even perfectly designed polls may be total bullshit 1/20 times
*the human factor in which the support of candidates may be under/overrated based upon the social acceptability of being a supporter

It's a bit like Russian roulette. 5 times out of 6 things going as expected, but that 1 time out of six, things may really not go as expected. And events like these shootings are like pulling the trigger.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

The statement this morning by Mélenchon is ignominious with his double bind so typical of the character. Read carefully and trust your eyes. I copy:

"The identification of the criminal degenerate who defied us is a good news," said Jean-Luc Melenchon. "Now, our first duty is to fight against stigma and hateful assimilations to which this situation could lead."

All information received by journalists is from the mouth of Interior Minister Claude Guéant.

The killer is of French nationality, born in Toulouse, forename Mohammed.

He claims to have shot the soldiers to protest against the French army being in Afghanistan, and the Jewish children to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children.

His brother is in custody, without this implying he is an accomplice, or in what degree. His mother was also taken to the house where he's holed up, but she refused to talk to him, saying she had no influence whatsoever on him.

As to facts, only Bayrou and Mélenchon had made any declarations during the "truce" (still being observed by Sarko and Hollande). They said, pretty much, that there would have to ba a debate about the setting, the atmosphere, in which these killings took place - understand, the deliberate pandering to xenophobia of the right.

Marine Le Pen has now come right back in saying that Bayrou and Mélenchon have disqualified themselves from the election by their obvious wish for a racist motive and their finger-pointing. And that the needed debate is on the return of capital punishment.

Conspiracy: wow this would be a really big one. If so, it would have been very difficult to operate. Planting a lone nutter at a spot where a major political figure can be conveniently shot is one thing. Setting this killer off over several attacks, without leaving any traces, seems to me like another.

The FBI do this sort of thing all the time - in fact most US terrorism prosecutions since 9/11 seem to have the pattern of FBI finding a group of Walter Mittys, giving them encouragement and a plan and tools to look credible about executing it and then arresting them for it.

The hard bit would be not being caught doing it - the risk of exposure from the agents used would be very high and the downside catastrophic.

Radio reports say he is talking a lot (also firing and has injured RAID police ie SWAT-type commando). He claims to be acting for Al Qaeda and the "moudjahiddin", and to have visited the tribal areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I hope they don't kill him, as dead men tell no tales, but I suspect he might end up killing himself.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

"There was clearly discriminatory and stigmatizing discourses on the part of Nicolas Sarkozy and the part of Claude Gueant. This does not help. I think there was much stigmatizing talk, I think we are coming out of a period of five years where we set up the French against each other. "

Following the events of recent days, Eva Joly hope emerges in the country a will to "live together for a collective project for peace". She also hoped that "these painful events, help us live better together and not divide us."

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II

The National Front attacked Wednesday morning "to the bastards" who, he says, "exploited the tragedy of Toulouse" against the FN and Le Pen, its candidate for president. "For the attention of Mrs Buffet, MM. Mélenchon, Bayrou, Sopo and others: you thought miserably to exploit the tragedy of Toulouse against the National Front" and Marine Le Pen, the FN wrote the head of a press release entitled "To the bastards." "Your side tried to drag in the mud 20% of French people and missed. You tried to add drama to the horror of your bad political vindictiveness," the FN, which asks the persons cited to "apologise to the FN and its electors and to" keep quiet for a long time. "

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II

According to the BBC, who are quoting the French interior minister, Claude Guéant, the suspect is negotiating with police and has thrown a Colt 45 pistol out of the window (police have previosuly identified a .45 calibre pistol as a weapon used in all three attacks).

Following the murders, he was apparently planning to join the Mexican Revolution.

Interesting descriptions from those who know Mohammed Merah (my translations from Libé):

"Samir":
"He's a believer but non-practising. He did Ramadan, that's all. He had a red Mohawk last summer. More than "fashion", he was a punk. Physically, he's slim, 1m75, a face like an 18-year-old kid. I've never seen him with tattoos or a scar on his face [supposedly seen by an eye-witness], yet I saw him last Saturday".

"Kamel":
"I don't want him to get shot because we'll never know why he did that. I saw him in a nightclub three weeks ago, he was smoking a chicha (water pipe). You go to nightclubs, you're not a Salafist".

His lawyer (who has represented him previously in driving offences - oddly, this is a well-known Toulouse lawyer):
"...fragile personality... discreet, polite and courteous... flexible behaviour, smooth, and not rigid in a way that might suggest fanatism..."

Other friends:
"...a nice guy, calm, the youngest brother. He likes football, motorbikes, cars, and girls. He had no particular link to religion, didn't wear a beard, went to nightclubs."

"I saw him on Sunday, he was calm, normal. We never talked about politics."

A 25-year-old French man, whose parents were born in Algeria, said: "I grew up with him. I'm totally shocked and surprised, I can't believe that he could do this. His mum was French of Algerian origin -- she brought him up alone. He didn't have a dad. This has absolutely nothing to do with Islam, or with us, and I really hope that all the young people of our type of neighbourhood won't be sullied by this. It has always been hard enough living in France with prejudice but now it's going to be much worse."

Another man who said he was 24 and a warehouse worker, but did not give his name, said he knew the family, in particular the suspect's brother. He said: "I came down here because I wanted to see what was going on. I heard someone at work listening to the news say this morning, 'It's an Arab, It's an Arab' ... He was the kind of kid who got into trouble, but he was a banal young guy. Over the past two years he had changed a lot. He wasn't into having fun, he became harder. He didn't really go to the mosque, he seemed more likely to meet people in obscure flats."

(...)

One woman said: "I knew his family and his mother, his father had died. There was nothing to suggest he would have acted like this. The North African community is doubly hit, first by the grief for the victims and what happened, and also that we're from the Magreb and people will be pointing fingers at us. I appeal to the French, don't mix up the whole community with what has happened. Never never has Islam said to kill people."

None of these witnesses, however, knew he had been to Afghanistan. Which he did several times. Was arrested in Kandahar for placing bombs and sentenced to three years (?WTF!). But broke out of prison when the Taliban attacked it in 2008. Was apparently again arrested in 2010.

So basically a filthy little youth thief, the kind who robs other youths of their mobile phones and old ladies of their purses, who suddenly finds something to believe in, goes to AfPak, meets people who think like himself, then heads home and starts a rampage. Probably not a very clever guy. That's my theory at least.

I mean it must have been the shock value of the school shooting that mobilised the police. If they were on his trail already yesterday, what prevented them from doing the same after the second attack on the 15th?

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

You'll interpret things that way, if you wish. I have seen no evidence he was robbing old ladies. His latest conviction was for driving without a licence. It is said he once worked for a time in car body repairs. Probably more then, in the car and motorbike theft business.

But the "suddenly finds something to believe in" oversimplifies the identity crisis of young Arab Muslims in a society that stigmatizes them.

France was on Wednesday confronting the emergence of home-grown Islamist terrorism on its soil following the brutal killing of seven people, including three children, by a 23-year-old French citizen who was holding out in a flat surrounded by police in the southern city of Toulouse.

(...)

Unlike its neighbours in the UK and Spain, France has managed to avoid successful jihadist attacks on its home soil since Al Qaeda carried on the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York.
French security services, using tough anti-terror laws, have been praised for rooting out potential home-grown terrorists, but Mr Merah was able to mount the attacks despite being known to the police and security services.

The difference between hate crime and terrorism is quite simple. A hate crime is a crime which is comitted because you hate somebody for a number of specified reasons (ethnicity, sexual orientation etc). Terrorism is something completely different, as the main wished effect of the terror is not to cause physical devastation (that is the means), but to cause political changes through fear.

Then it is the response of media, police and right-wing politicians which turns ordinary crime into terrorism - they are the ones who whip up fear which is out of any reasonable proportion to the actual threat posed, in order to further their partisan agenda.

Why not skip the middle-man and say that it is the political police and the right-wing politicians who are the terrorists, then?

Not at all! It doesn't depend on the reporting, but on the motivation of the perpetrator. Remember how Margaret Thatcher tried to strangle reporting on IRA terrorism to make it less effective. That didn't stop it from being terrorism.

It has become essential part of the political (and media) response to acts of terrorism to ignore the statements of political motive by the perpetrators. As if listening to what a terrorist has to say were equivalent to giving in to their demands.

Sarkozy said yesterday at a campaign rally that Merah was "not a madman" but "a monster" and that "looking for a motive would be a moral mistake".

But that's politics, not policy, nor criminology.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday described Mohamed Merah as a «monster» and «fanatic», suggesting that it would be «a moral error» to want to «look for an explanation» to the actions of the author of seven murders in Montauban and Toulouse, and who was killed in a RAI assault. «This crimes are not those of a madman. A madman is irresponsible. This acts are those of a fanitic and a monster», declared the presidential candidate during a public rally in Strasbourg.

«To look for an explanation to the acts of this fanatic, of this monster, to allow a glimpse of a minimum of understanding or worse to look for the smallest excuse, would be a moral error», argued Nicolas Sarkozy, who resumed his campaign suspended on Monday. «To put society under question, to point the finger at France, politics, institutions, is not dignified. It's not demostrating a spirit of responsibility at a moment when the Nation is in need of unity», continued the Head of State before 9000 people according to the UMP.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

«To put society under question, to point the finger at France, politics, institutions, is not dignified. It's not demostrating a spirit of responsibility at a moment when the Nation is in need of unity»

Translation: "I don't want you to look at my monumental, serial cock-ups and flat-up stupid policies that lead to this incident. I want National UnityTM (except for the brown people, who are not part of the Nation - they just live here)."

But clearly the right-wing noise makers are still exploiting fear of violence that they themselves, ultimately, created in order to promote their partisan policy agenda.

Does it make that much of a difference whether it was their own finger on the button, when political violence was the predictable and natural reaction to their policies of systematic disenfranchisement and immiseration of large population subgroups?

Or is it sufficient excuse that they are too stupid and short-sighted to realise that it is their own policies which create the objective and subjective conditions for violent backlash?

But clearly the right-wing noise makers are still exploiting fear of violence that they themselves, ultimately, created in order to promote their partisan policy agenda.
Does it make that much of a difference whether it was their own finger on the button, when political violence was the predictable and natural reaction to their policies of systematic disenfranchisement and immiseration of large population subgroups?

That you can not blame just on the right. It is the responsiblity of the entire French nation. It goes back a very long way.

In previous discussions, we were leaning towards the view that rightwing racist violence was never called "terrorism" (whereas it should be). Now we know that this was rightwing religious extremist violence, I can't see why it should not be called "terrorism" either. Conspiring in Waziristan to commit murderous and terrifying attacks in France may properly be called "terrorism", which in no way excludes "hate crime", and vice versa. So arguing that this is not "terror" seems to me a dead end.

"Homegrown" applies in two ways: one, the society that excludes and stigmatizes entire generations of kids from the banlieues, thereby creating the ground for extremist growth, and two, that Merah was "converted" and recruited in a French prison. What is not homegrown is the fanatical medievalists in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Police work "before" was pretty obviously bad. While the terror alert level was supposed to be red (wow!), Mohammed Merah was placed under light surveillance. That should never have happened. Just goes to show that terror alert levels are a purely communicational device intended to impress and (scare or reassure?) the general population.

Malika also told this story: "Mohamed asked the brother of the girl to come to his home in the apartment where he is now entrenched, citing a computer glitch. Once home, the adolescent could not leave. Mohamed had sequestered him. He wanted to show videos of Al Qaeda, with beheadings, etc.. the adolescent's mother was worried and had immediately initiated a search. The teen was eventually freed. The sister of the youth had then met with Mohamed and told him to never do it again. Mohamed attacked her so violently that she even had to be hospitalized for several days. Mohamed then came under the windows the family apartment of the victim. He was in combat fatigues, armed with a sword and yelling that he was Al Qaeda ... Why the police and justice have taken no action? A complaint was laid. "

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II

In previous discussions, we were leaning towards the view that rightwing racist violence was never called "terrorism" (whereas it should be). Now we know that this was rightwing religious extremist violence, I can't see why it should not be called "terrorism" either. Conspiring in Waziristan to commit murderous and terrifying attacks in France may properly be called "terrorism", which in no way excludes "hate crime", and vice versa. So arguing that this is not "terror" seems to me a dead end.

Right-wing extremists like the groups Breivik used to mingle with are tolerated by Western™ security services just like right-wing extremists are tolerated by the Pakistani security services. It's just that a right-wing extremist in the Pakistani tribal regions looks "islamic extremist" when transplanted to Europe. But it's all about extreme, violent, possibly deranged, right-wing authoritarians being tolerated by right-wing authoritarian security services.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

If that was a sufficient additional circumstance I suspect you'd have to put a good percentage of the population under surveillance.

This sort of attack is the nightmare of security services: it's virtually unstoppable unless the attacker goes to the trouble of telling someone what he's going to do. You don't need any special equipment - a gun and ammo is easily obtained pretty much anywhere if you have minimal contacts with crime - you don't need any special preparation, you don't need a cell.

When did traveling to a part of the world that the political police does not like become a crime? I'm not - quite - old enough to remember the time when people's phones were tapped because they'd been to Moskva or Beijing, but I don't think that the abandonment of that practise is any great loss to European civilisation.

It looks to me like the place to point at deficient police work is that they didn't seem to take it seriously that he was waving bladed weapons at people and making threatening noises (something that is illegal in most jurisdictions whether the blade is actually sharp or just a replica).

Who wants to lay odds that that incident was dismissed as "just some Arabs' internal issues" by the police?

You can't police a community you're harassing because policing depends on cooperation from the community. As far as I understand it, one of Sarko's key policies was to get rid of the community style policing from the banlieues in favour of much more right-wing authoritarian friendly
hard-man, zero tolerance policing.

He should have gone to jail for kidnapping a teenager and showing him snuff movies, beating up his sister and sending her to hospital, and ranting under their window waving a sabre and claiming to be from Al Qaida.

Which part of that do you disagree with?

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II

We spend 90% of the time on this blog when we talk about this issue to worry about the surveillance state and suddenly, when, in hindsight, in one case (a noisy and nasty one for sure, but again, no more traumatizing for the families than the recent bus crash in Switzerland), we should throw all that away and encourage the police to step up their surveillance even more?

Why can't we admit that we'll never be able to anticipate one individual going 'snap'? Why should we pay the price in the form of a police state to prevent - maybe - another such crime?

Yes, and he's been to jail two years at least, and had a rap sheet of 15 items.

Hitting the woman is a crime. Shouting in the street that you are with Al-Qaida is not, as far as I can tell.

But again, what should have been done? Have him under 24/7 surveillance? How many people would you need to do that with? And wouldd that even have prevented him fro mooing what he did? Keep him in jail preemptively? For how long?

How many people do stupid, offensive, potentially dangerous stuff? What should we do with all of them?

Yes, and he's been to jail two years at least, and had a rap sheet of 15 items.

Was he in jail for that incident with the detention, the battery and the threats?

Shouting in the street that you are with Al-Qaida is not, as far as I can tell.

I don't know whether his "sabre" was a real weapon or a replica for sale to tourists. If it was real (sharp), in most of Europe (don't know about France) it was illegal to own, it was illegal to carry, and it sure as hell was illegal to unsheath in the middle of the street and brandish threateningly, let alone at specific people.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

Why did it take the police less than a day to find the killer after the school shooting using leads associated to his first murder on March 11 when there had been a second hit on the 15th and the police knew the weapon used in both attacks was the same?

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

Wait were you pulling Let's even admit he's put on the list of "highly dangerous people" - but free out of a bodily orifice? I was assuming you were implying such a "list" existed and thus my question about what it entailed.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

But then that's not a failure of police intelligence, it's a failure of prison policy. A point which I think I made yesterday already (noting that he was radicalized as a minor in prison).

I'm saying that such individuals may be followed by DCRI (and he was - whether with the proper level of attention or not is an open question) but that this is highly unlikely to prevent such a individual which generated, to date, only minor worries to a service dedicated to that question, from going suddenly much further.

We need a timeline. After all, the guy was 24. Not a lot of time to do lots of things and be in and out of jail. When was the alleged kidnapping, assault and threats? Was it not reported to the police?

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

What is at stake? How do you know someone mildly dangerous will suddenly go around killing people in cold blood like this?

I want to know, because I want to know which signs are those the police should look for amongst 65 million people - and what measures they should take against EVERY SINGLE PERSON which exhibits any of these symptoms, in order to prevent that killing spree.

An IP address, the number you can tell from where you access the Internet a particular team. And a motorcycle dealership that the suspect came to ask you disconnected the mechanism to locate vehicles in case of theft. These were the two key clues that allowed the research chief prosecutor, François Molins, find the links that led to the French police to identify and then locate the alleged murderer. A "colossal job," praised the prosecutor in his more than 300 employees, which was to cross seven million telephone data, 700 Internet connections and hundreds of replies to the notice of sale of a motorcycle, which the researchers identified the neighborhood where the suspect was on 17 March.

I don't know what the original source is, and a timeline would be nice, too.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

But we're told after the IP search related to the scooter sale "the family was put under surveillance". Therefore, the IP search was completed after the school shooting. Then we're told the key turn in the investigation was at the Yamaha dealership where he had asked about disabling the anti-theft device, in the afternoon after the school shooting.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

Immediately after the killing in Montauban against the paratroopers Thursday, the Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence (DCRI) pulled out records of Islamists in the region, including that of this French of Algerian descent who lives in Toulouse and was "noticed for two training stays in Afghanistan and Pakistan," according to an intelligence officer.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

Eight cops in the fight against cybercrime explore then [after the first murder] the victim's computer and they identify many IP addresses that have accessed the announcement of the seller of the Suzuki. Claude Gueant said this morning on BFMTV that "575 buyers showed up." Monday afternoon, after the shooting against the Jewish school in Toulouse Ozar Hatorah where three young children and a religion teacher were killed, one of these IP addresses has "attracted attention because the name matched the mother the suspect "Mohamed Merah" known for its Salafist radicalization "according to the Interior Minister.

It was then that the family was put under surveillance.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

Since Friday, the police and judicial authorities are reluctant to "turn the case into terrorism," according to a magistrate.

Then, after the school shooting the police become convinced that the stolen motorcycle described as black by witnesses to the second shooting and white by witnesses of the school shooting had been repainted. They then scour paint shops, garages and Yamaha dealerships, and hit on the report of a youngster who asked about "a friend who´s repainting his bike and wants to know about the location device".

In the middle of the "strategy" meeting of justice and police authorities at the Toulouse Prefecture turned into HQ, this major element lifted "the hesitation on the decision to launch the operation or not." The green light was given to the RAID last night and confirmed at midnight to intervene in the night at Mohamed Merah's home in Toulouse.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

9 days does not sound like an extravagant timeframe for a murder investigation, TBH. It sucks that he killed another bunch of people during that week, of course. But really the only way I can see the police could have cut down on that time table would be to run out and arrest a whole busload of random people and hope their guy was among them.

That's what they did in Oslo - problem was, they ran out and arrested the wrong busload of random people. Which, incidentally, illustrates one of the reasons I'm not really a big fan of that investigation technique.

A "colossal job," praised the prosecutor in his more than 300 employees, which was to cross seven million telephone data, 700 Internet connections and hundreds of replies to the notice of sale of a motorcycle

What does that have to do with your

the only way I can see the police could have cut down on that time table would be to run out and arrest a whole busload of random people

The impression I get from the reports is that the "colossal job" took place (or was shifted into a higher gear and finished) with urgency after the school shooting.

In fact, the first lead we were told about regarding the school was the neonazi soldiers. Was that before or after the ballistics came back and linked the school shooting with the earlier two incidents? In any case, it was the ballistics link that accelerated the resolution of the first murder.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

I find it difficult to believe that they sifted through all those communications in the what? 36 hours following the school shooting? The French police is not that good.

Of course the investigation is expedited when it becomes clear that you're dealing with a serial killer. But that makes a great deal of sense, because most killers are not serial killers. And when you're dealing with a not-serial killer, you want to be thorough rather than fast. The dead don't come back to life because you get the killer three days sooner - but if you go to far too fast you might screw something up that means you can't prosecute.

Five days sounds reasonable. But seven days also sounds reasonable. Really, absent any further evidence one way or another, I don't think we can rule out that it was just an unfortunate coincidence that it took them long enough to nail him that he got another hit in in the meantime.

Failing to react appropriately to his earlier kidnapping, threats and assault is what we can blame the police for. Not for taking a week to find a shooter. I doubt any police force in the world could reliably do better than that.

If we look at what is known of keeping tabs of dangerous communists back in the days, the lists were huge. Given that at least German police has used data storage to get every single cell-phone in the same city as demonstrations, they are probably much longer today.

So without knowing how long the list is, or how it is compiled, I am sceptic to if they are of any use.

Well, the first murders became a lot easier to solve after the school shooting.

Before that I suppose the suspect profile was something like "guy who has a gun, who hates the army or immigrants", and after he murdered those Jewish children the number if suspects shrunk to "crazy guy who hates that army and Jews, ie a crazy Muslim who probably has been to AfPak".

it looks like he had father issues and fell under the influence of jihadists who did not have the balls to do the killing themselves, most notably his older brother. they both devalued their mother who raised them alone. they tried to force her to wear the hijab.

add his rejection by the army and you get the same profile as Marc Lépine the killer of the women student engineers at the Polytechnique in Montréal in 1989.

All police work is originally based on hunches and guess work. What Hans "Stupid" Holmér did wrong was not suspecting the PKK in the first place, but not dropping the suspicions when it became obvious they were completely innocent.

But you always start by throwing out a wide net (the usual suspects) and then sorting out those who have nothing to do with the crime. Eventually, the number of suspects is small enough (or the suspicions against certain individual strong enough) that you can start bringing in people for questioning.

What he did wrong was to fail to look for and follow up on leads that did not conform to his pet guess. Guesswork and hunches are great for expanding the pool of people you need to have a talk with or a look at. Not so good for reducing it. To narrow it down, you need a more concrete sort of evidence.

I was referring to your "any of us". It's a manifest strawman. This is not about "any of us" might do if we cracked up. People crack up all the time. They commit (or attempt) suicide, they become violent, they may kill. Is it so hard to see that what Merah has done over the last week or so goes far beyond that?

We have consistently argued (and agreed) on this blog that terrorism was not a matter for military intervention in far-off countries, but for correctly-applied police work. Your contention is that police work previous to Merah's attacks was good. Mine is that it fell down by not applying a higher surveillance level to Merah.

That does not mean Merah would not have slipped through the net and done his deeds anyway. Just that I don't vote any plaudits to the police for their preventive work in this instance.

is a pretty serious crime. Assault on his sister is also a pretty serious crime. Coupled with what they knew about his many travels to the NWFP and Afghanistan, this guy should have been at the very least locked up for both offences.

And instead he's being detained for driving without a permit?

Looks like a number of keystone cops episodes to me, setting up what was first appearing to be Sarko's heroic rescue but which will now be seen for what it was: ineffectual police work which allowed many avoidable crimes to happen.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet.
Winston Churchill

Again, unless the modus operandi has changed noticeably since the IB affair, those lists are worthless. Because people just get dumped there by more or less competent and more or less diligent spooks, who seem to lack the concept of focus and priorities. The US no-fly lists in particular are a long-standing joke in this regard (except when you get on them because you happen to have the same name as someone who visited North Korea once).

We have been able to find the family in question, in terror after learning that the same Mohamed Merah was the presumed author of the series of murders in Montauban and Toulouse. Several people close to them have been able to confirm Malika's version. We have equally been able to meet the lawyer who filed the complaint, Mr. Mouton.

He also confirms: "The deeds regarding the assault harken back to the Spring of 2010 if my memory serves. Since then, I have no news. The mom was heard but I don't know whether an investigation was carried out and, in that case, I was not informed of any followups. I can only lament it. And, today, precisely, this case becomes particularly relevant."

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

presume that these events, which happen all the time, will turn someone into a cold-blooded killer.

But, as you agree, we can expect that such events might be punished severely under the law, especially considering that if they had actually been properly pursued, other circumstantial evidence, including his trips to jihadistan, would certainly have led to a long prison term, perhaps even prosecution under the terrorism statutes (the episode with the sabre) and perhaps also institutionalisation for mental illness.

Unfortunately, since the aggressee and the sequestree were both "one of them" and not céfran, this avenue of research and prosecution was not pursued by the local police, and the bungling was compounded later.

I am sure that if the accused had threatened good old white folks the same way, the outcome would have been different. And differential justice is justice denied, with potentially dire consequences, as we see here.

Every non-white French knows he or she will not be afforded the same protection under the law and will be unjustly subjected to hamfisted application of petty crime law enforcement (identity controls for starters) unlike their white compatriots. This is a hallmark of Sarkozy's and the UMP's security strategy, and it not only is racist, but it doesn't work, as we see here. And I suspect that this is going to be a very fruitful line of attack both for your side and for mine.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet.
Winston Churchill

This is the timeline, as far as I can piece it together from this Libé profile as well as other links in this thread:

2008: gets out of 18 months of jail for stealing a handbag outside a bank branch, with all his previous record acting as an aggravating circumstance (i.e., he was jailed as soon as he became an adult). His former employer takes him on again.

January 2008: he tries to join the army in Lille, is rejected for his criminal record.

2009: the article speaks of minor offences "between 2006 and 2009". No details

Spring 2010: detention, battery and threats incident, with a complaint filed against him

July 2010: tries the Foreign Legion in Toulouse, but leaves before actually going through the screening process. Just after this, he goes to Afghanistan "by his own means" "without passing through known channels or intermediaries or countries under surveillance" (atypical salafist self-radicalisation, says the Paris prosecutor)

November 2010: he's stopped by the Afghan police at a roadblock and given to the Americans for "papers trouble", and sent back to France.

August-October 2011: he goes to the Pakistani Frontier Region where he "claims to have been trained by Al Qaeda". Contracts Hepatitis A and returns to France.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

Irak, Syria, Israel (where he would have been trying to go to the occupied territories) and perhaps also Iran (twice)

That's remarkable! I thought it was exceedingly difficult to visit Israel and any of its neighbours (not no mention Iran) on the same passport as having visited "an enemy state" tends to result in your being turned back at the border.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

There appears to be a lot of misinfo on this subject. Israeli nationals certainly cannot go to many Arab countries, and you certainly will, depending on who you are, face some pretty pointed questions at customs when you have your passport stamped Israel before going, say, to the UAE (though if your first name is Mohammed, this probably will be a mitigating factor).

But very few countries refuse to, as a matter of policy, allow people entry simply because they have a Israel stamp in their passport, though the risk that one might be turned away is understandably something people tend to avoid, via two passports for instance.

And, it goes both ways. I think someone names Mohammed with Irak, Syria and Afghanistan passport stamps is going to find it hard (harder) to gain entry to Israel.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet.
Winston Churchill

now it is Sarko fault if this "chance pour la France" started his criminal career and end up grapping a 8 year old small girl by the hairs and shot her in the head.

Yes.

Yes, it is damn well Sarkozy's fault that on his watch, first as interior minister and then as El Presidente, he destroyed the French police's will or ability (NB: That's an inclusive or) to respond to kidnapping, assault and death threats perpetrated against brown people. If the French police had responded properly to the kidnapping, assault and death threats against a family of Magrheb descent years ago, none of this would have happened.

This little mujahedin wannabe could have been quashed years ago, if the French police had taken crime against brown people seriously. But apparently it required a couple of soldiers and a few white kids to get shot before the glorious police under Sarkozy I could be bothered to get off their asses.

Yes, that's Sarkozy's fault.

Of course for Sarkozy it makes great sense. After all, looking tough quashing revolts with his water cannons is more important to Sarkozy than proper police work: And to look tough quashing revolts, one must first create the preconditions for revolt. And all the racist mouth-breathers will be too busy going "ooh" and "aah" at the strong manly-man who shows the inferiors their place to notice that if it hadn't been for his own strongman policies, there would have been no need for water cannons in the first place.

Of course, Sarkozy is focusing on making it a crime to access extremist literature on the internet, as well as travelling abroad for indoctrination. That's where he can score political points with his base.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

is always suffering from political framing. That is also the case here.

But terrorist acts are generally 'hate crimes'. The question is whether the reverse is true.

Are (were) the Tamil Tigers a terrorist organisation? The EU still seems to think so. People can beg to differ.

Yet for the situation in Toulouse, someone who claims to be inspired by Al Quaida, has at least traveled twice to Pakistan and possibly visited trainingsites, and given the provided motives for his attacks - that does fit the description.

I think what tripped you was the addition of the word "emergence" in the article.

Merah was called in for interrogation by the DCRI in November 2011 and asked to explain his trips to Afghanistan/Waziristan. He showed photos and gave an account of a tourist trip.

Reportedly the DCRI was not fooled, but did not see him as an immediate threat (in particular, no known contacts with other jihadists). Surveillance was limited to telephone and Internet.

Internet gave him away, since the IP (in fact his mother's, not his brother's) was listed, and cross-checking the DCRI list with connections on the small ad site Merah used to lure the first victim brought the IP up.

One thing we won't be getting from the meejah (be thankful for small mercies) is the awful shadowy tentacles of Internet, because Merah obviously received no intertoobs training in the tribal mountains.

According to Claude Guéant (Le Monde), Merah had stated last night he would not surrender and would kill police. In the apartment, he was holed up in the bathroom, from which he came out, armed. But then jumped out of the window and was found dead on the ground.

The RAID had orders to use non-lethal force, and spent 20 minutes trying to flush him out with stun grenades

When they sent a camera into the bathroom where he was holed up, he came out with guns blazing, and there's a five minute gun battle

He then runs across the room and jumps out of the window, and is immediately shot in the head by a police sniper

So : the snipers perhaps didn't get the "take him alive" memo; or on the contrary, had instructions to shoot to kill if he left the building (to prevent him shooting at anyone other than the RAID guys, one supposes)

So it looks as if it all went as well as could be expected...

Except that perhaps his lawyer, or someone else, could have talked him out (it was an extraordinarily courageous offer, and I hope there will be serious questions as to why it wasn't tried)

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II

Reaction of the former lawyer for Mohamed Merah: The lawyer for Mohamed Merah for years, which was Thursday morning near the apartment where the suspect was killed by the RAID after a siege of 32 hours and a fusillade, found just after the fact that this issue was "the logical outcome of the strategy adopted" by the police.

"His death is the logical result of the strategy, we have locked up more and more radical in his autism, his break with reality, nothing has been done to help restore the link, dialogue ", considered to AFP Etelin Me Christian, who defended Merah since his teens, mostly for petty crimes like theft.

He said the strategy employed "could only lead him to head straight to the hard-line and want to die fighting". "I am both shocked by what he did, and his death," said the lawyer.

"I wish we could have done everything possible to have an explanation, how he was able to engage in such a dehumanizing process (...) it is a possibility of knowledge of the human being which escapes us , "he noted.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II

Le Pen has already stated openly that she felt vindicated, that the threat from radical islam had been under-estimated and downplayed by all the other parties

Cope (the UMG general secretary) has openly accused Hollande and Bayrou or not respecting the "truce" and of playing part politics with the events; he's been rebuffed quite strongly by the PS, who says that Sarkozy pretends to take the high road while his sidekicks engage in vicious and unbecoming attacks

the smaller candidates, as well as Bayrou, have flagged the atmosphere of hate and intolerance which has been encouraged by some in the recent past

the PS has already started asking questions about some aspects of the police work

What the Sarkozy camp hopes is that his decisive action over the Toulouse crisis will persuade Le Pen voters, who polls show might otherwise abstain, to turn out for him in numbers for the second round, on May 6, where polls have him trailing Mr Hollande by a significant margin.

Er, what "decisive action" did Sarkozy take ? The police traced Merah through an IP address and someone who reported his inquiry about fixing a scooter security device. Then there was the expected RAID group attempt to sieze him which went wrong at the beginning and end. Arguably the police/security forces should have kept him under better watch given his record. Sarkozy's "decisive action" has been to cut police numbers, partly through cuts to local council allowances, e.g.:

Because sometimes, mere "regional papers" (and Ha'aretz and taz...) do a better "out of the box" job than the Paris-based "[supposedly] national press".
As for La Dépêche (Toulouse local paper), it is mostly useful for "dog bites man" type of stories.

"There was nothing to allow the arrest of Mohamed Merah" before he got into action, he delared on RTL. "We don't have the right, in a country like ours, to subject to permanent surveillance without a judicial order someone who hasn't committed a crime (...) The state we live in is subject to the rule of law".

"The DCRI has done its job perfectly"

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman